


the chance we deserve

by russianpotatofarm



Category: DRAMAtical Murder
Genre: Brief Fluff, Canonical Character Death, Consensual Underage Sex, Emotional Constipation, Grinding, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Suicidal Thoughts, Unbeta'd, Vague Sex, aggressive attempts to not be sappy, aoba and ren are douchebags, aren't you glad i didnt name it after a carrie underwood song, because we need more mizublue in this world, for mizuki i mean, haha sly still dies, noiz's route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 00:22:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2088618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/russianpotatofarm/pseuds/russianpotatofarm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything goes to shit, Sly Blue gets laid, Ren is not very helpful, Mizuki tries futilely to be a supportive boyfriend, Noiz is depressed as hell, and Aoba is his usual no-homoing, Sly-fearing self.<br/>AKA, Why We Can't Have Nice Things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the chance we deserve

Being ignored is nothing new to Desire.

He has been waiting for years, and by now this is just an essential part of him. He’s a mirror image of Restraint, and just as Aoba found he was fond of him when he noticed their presence, Aoba discovers that Desire is a not exactly desirable part of his personality, and he does his best to cut him out. So at the same time that Restraint is influencing Aoba more heavily than he is (because that’s all they can do, really, influence Aoba, and that’s the closest to control they’re ever going to get), Desire is learning quickly that he’s not needed here, and just as Restraint and Aoba grow closer, Desire becomes cast out, Aoba trying desperately to crush him down and pretend that he never existed, that Aoba has nothing to do with him, that he is just a nightmarish illusion of what Aoba could have been, but was lucky enough not to. It’s quick, pretty clean. Even if Aoba is already uptight and kind of insufferable, Restraint is that to the tenth power, and they band together against Desire with no sort of remorse at all.

Restraint’s dismal, rueful gaze when Aoba finally manages to push Desire down far enough into a powerless hole is not nearly good enough to make up for what he’s led Aoba to do.

Restraint is not sorry. He planned this, and Desire feels stupid for ever trusting him to begin with.

Logic is never on his side.

When Aoba turns fourteen, Desire has been sitting pretty for long enough that he collects all his remaining reserve, draws up all the hate he’s been saving for the other two, and attacks.

It’s not well thought out. The whole plan is pretty much just attempting to seize control, shoving Aoba out of the way, and trying to get Restraint pushed back where Desire has been all this time. Ideally, Restraint will not have all the passion (or whatever the fuck it is- Desire doesn’t know what to call his power, seeing as it’s forged mostly of regret and a thirst for revenge) that Desire did, and he’ll have to idly wait until Desire decides to let him out, which will be never. Their mind is a fucking battleground, and hopefully Restraint hasn’t figured that out.

He tries to do it while Aoba’s asleep. He thinks it’ll be easier that way, what with Aoba being less guarded, and he’s spent so long daydreaming and rehearsing it mentally that nothing can go wrong.

Restraint finds him again, trying desperately to shove them aside, and Desire thinks he might not have even minded that so much. More of an opportunity to show Restraint that he can be better than him. Maybe a chance for a melodramatic rant, because even if that’s a bad idea and wastes time, he’s fourteen and pissed off and wants to hurt Restraint no matter how it happens. He’s also got a bitching speech ready.

And, of course, Restraint pulls him backs, replaces him in the dark corners of their mind, and Desire doesn’t care. He doesn’t care if Restraint’s eyes shine when he says “I am so sorry,” and he doesn’t care about the frantic (for him) explanation Restraint offers to him, the fix-it bandaid that he assumed would make the blow worse when he betrays him again.

He should know better than to assume that he is meant to be in control.

Restraint doesn’t take over, which is kind of unprecedented. Desire had always thought he’d be the one controlling them all someday.

But no. He settles for a dog.

It’s late. Aoba is walking home from school, kicking rocks in the way that irritates Restraint just a little but not enough to mention it, and Desire is just enjoying the show when suddenly Aoba’s heart lights up, and he runs across the street, mind buzzing with excitement over whatever he thinks he sees.

Desire is sort of disappointed when it’s just a dog.

An Allmate, Restraint informs him. So not that bad. A robot dog. Which Desire assumes is cooler, but he doesn’t know. Allmates have always seemed sort of useless to him. They’re just empty shells, filled with AI and weather reports.

He says it aloud, for lack of anything else to do, and Restraint looks to him suddenly, an odd light in his eyes.

“A shell,” he repeats, staring right through Desire.

He looks at him one more time, closes his eyes, and before Desire can say anything, Restraint is gone. He blinks out like a computer glitch, with no evidence that he ever existed.

When the Allmate’s eyes blink open the next moment, Desire knows what he’s done.

He should miss him, or at least feel something more than this slight sense of loss.

But this just makes it easier.

Aoba doesn’t know a thing. He never believed Restraint was real in the first place. He thought of them both as voices in his head, never thinking anything more of them.

He names the dog Ren, for the feeling of having protected another, and Desire laughs so hard he can almost hear it echoing.

When he does take over, it’s completely by accident. Aoba was caught off guard, and to be fair, so was Desire. They had all been shocked by something (what it was, he can’t remember. Probably an injury. Aoba and Ren were always oh-so-careful not to hurt their precious body), and Desire’s control slips in as easily as water. It feels natural, actually, which is strange because by this time he’s convinced himself it’s not supposed to happen, and he’s content with wasting his life in the back of Aoba’s mind.

It’s like waking up, and he can see now, there’s no fog over any of his senses from experiencing them second-hand.

It is bright and new and fragile, and he feels alive for once.

Because he is.

He chooses a new name. Sly Blue. It sounded cool at the time, and even if he starts regretting it in a few weeks, it’s still the only thing he has that is his, chosen by him and a marker of who he is now, and for once Ren can’t tell him not to do it in that gentle voice of his

He doesn’t miss him now. He just feels wild with the feeling of being able to do anything, and he doesn’t care about where Aoba is, and he doesn’t listen when Ren tells him to slow down or eat something or stop whatever he’s doing, because this is the one time he’s had more power than Ren, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t make the most of it.

He knows it’s going to end. He’s not that stupid. He’s afraid of wasting the time he has like this, because he doesn’t know when it’ll be over.

But even his fears make him happy now, if only because they’re his and his alone.

He isn’t used to having his own body. He isn’t used to needing to eat, or sleep at least eight hours, and not be able to fall asleep for years at a time when he isn’t needed. It’s kind of irritating after a while, not being able to do everything he thought he would without having to eat what seems like every twenty minutes.

Ren is always there, telling him calmly that he should sleep now, that he should eat something healthy, and monitoring his body stats to make sure he’s meeting that compromise between healthy and half-dead that they’ve unspokenly agreed on.

He is grateful to Ren for reminding him, even if he still won’t forgive him for what he did.

He gets into Rhyme shortly after that, because the sensations he feels are still brand-new and exciting, and Rhyme is a means to feeling them better, more often, without Ren reminding him constantly not to hurt himself.

It’s sort of entertaining, too, when some he challenges some older Rhymer they and scoffs at him, a teenage boy with a beat-up Spitz and torn clothes, and when they get into the game Sly is completely at home. He knows the loopholes in the game, and he has Ren’s attacks and stats memorized so well he could recite them in his sleep. He can recover his shields, and he’s not really sure how that works, but he knows he has more power than he should with these limited tools and experience. He isn’t interested in the why, though. He wants to learn how it works, so he can keep using it, keep feeling the electricity surging through him when he’s just barely winning and then rise up and push through just in time to fucking ruin his opponent.

He likes the power it gives him, he likes being able to pound someone else into the ground, and possibly most of all, he has a chance to tell Ren what to do, and he can’t refuse his judgement.

He won’t hurt Ren, but he won’t let him keep his dignity either.

Ren did the same to him.

He doesn’t know what the power is called.

He’s begun recognizing it as something unnatural, not just natural skill, but that doesn’t bother him. He doesn’t care so much about being skilled at Rhyme as he does being the best player. He might not actually be that great at the game, but he knows how it works, and he has an advantage that no one else does.

He’s just pleased with the knowledge that he can wreck people and make them respect him without even trying that hard.

He’s better than Aoba was, certainly.

He’s seventeen when he meets Mizuki, and he is caught between a mixture of respect and immediate desire to piss him off just to see what would happen.

Mizuki is calm and so fucking gentle it gets on his nerves, more than a little. He’s like Ren, but worst, almost. Ren could be antagonized. Ren, he could make beg and plead and yell when Sly ignored him, and he barely even had to try.

Mizuki just works with whatever he gives him. Sly can cut off all contact with him for three weeks and then come back like nothing happened, and Mizuki will just give him a talk about taking care of himself and pat him on the head. Mizuki lets him sit in the tattooist’s chair and spin and rant about how fucking idiotic the Rhymers these days are, and the worst he does is make a face at the mention of Rhyme. On the off chance that something does manage to piss Mizuki off, it’s not because of Sly, and he just sighs and goes back to whatever he’s doing.

He really does like Mizuki. He just wants to break him a little.

He feels that way about most people, actually.

It’s a few months after he meets Mizuki that he comes up with the latest idea to push him a little too far. It’s summer, and Sly’s been sitting in the lobby, sweaty skin sticking to the goth-ass leather couches Mizuki is so proud of. They’re not even talking when Sly thinks of it, and Ren is in sleep mode, so he doesn’t know where it came from, but it hits him like a wrecking ball nonetheless.

If he kisses Mizuki, he’ll have to react somehow.

He smiles to himself. This plan could actually work.

He doesn’t do it that day. Despite all his flirting with pretty much anyone that looks vaguely attractive, Sly is kind of uneasy about this. Kissing, as he has realized from awkward encounters with other Rhymers after games when no one has anywhere to be, is kind of a delicate thing, and if you don’t actually have some idea how you’re going about it, it’s gonna look really fucking idiotic. Which Sly does not have any ambition towards. He has a reputation to uphold.

(A pretty bad reputation, but still.)

He does it the next week. He’s decided that he’s going to wait until Mizuki’s started closing up the shop. He’s heard the Usui won’t be anywhere near him then, so he doesn’t have to miss out on Rhyme for this, which is probably good. If push came to shove, he doesn’t know if Mizuki is more important than Rhyme, and it honestly isn’t like that, but he does have priorities and he’d prefer if they made sense.

Mizuki is almost done by the time Sly works up the courage to do it, and he keeps reassuring himself that he’s in control of this whole idea, and it’ll be fine. He’s Sly motherfucking Blue, and he’s got this. Mizuki will never have seen it coming.

He repeats this like a mantra while he stands in front of Mizuki, realizing that this was a hell of a lot easier when he wasn’t doing it.

“What?” Mizuki asks him, smiling faintly like always, looking like he’s just so goddamn pleased to see Sly, and maybe he is. Sly doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know if he cares.

He does it anyway, just reaches up (Mizuki is three inches taller than him, and this kind of pisses him off, but it doesn’t matter. He’s going to fucking do this) and brushes their lips together, counting off three seconds before rocking back down on his heels, slightly away from Mizuki. He’s invaded his privacy enough. Might as well give him a second to recover.

When he looks at his face, Mizuki’s smile is gone, his face more blank and empty than Sly has ever seen it. Mizuki is supposed to be the expressive one, damnit, and this was all because it seemed like his reaction would be fun. He didn’t freak out about this in his lobby for nothing.

He does end up reacting, but it’s kind of not even close to what he expected. Instead of sputtering or telling him to go or anything logical, really, Mizuki bends down a little, tilting his head, and kisses him again, and it takes a moment but Sly registers very clearly that Mizuki is both kind of hot and also a very damn aggressive kisser.

But he’s really not complaining.

They’re still standing in the middle of the room, and Sly is kind of glad that the windows are shut, because no matter how goddamn sappy it is he feels like this is private. Like he gets to share this with Mizuki, even if it started as a prank, and no one else will even know if neither of them tell. Aoba is deep in their mind, and Ren is asleep in the other room, and just this once Blue knows something neither of them do, and he doesn’t have to share.

This was a good decision.

Mizuki reaches an arm around him, hand on Sly’s shoulderblade, and rests the other one on his hip, pulling him just a little closer. Sly assumes this means he can go a little further than this, and he might anyway, but he likes knowing that even if he wasn’t really planning this, Mizuki is still pretty damn into it.

Maybe he’s moving too fast. He doesn’t care. He slips a hand under Mizuki’s shirt, holding his waist, and when Mizuki makes a quiet noise against his mouth, he takes it as a sign to keep going. He shifts his mouth slightly, opening Mizuki’s lips with his, pushing his tongue in because the first kiss was the sweet, chaste one and now he’s quickly starting to want more. Mizuki does that same as always, takes what he does and runs with it, and Sly doesn’t know what happened, exactly, but he’s pressed against the wall and Mizuki makes another little appreciative noise, arms boxing Sly in and he’s all but covered by Mizuki’s body. Sly pushes back against him, trying to grasp at what little control he had, and before he knows it they’re not kissing so much as fighting, scrabbling at each other’s bodies and biting at mouths and it’s a little slobbery but Sly is just thanking whatever God that Mizuki isn’t actually the agreeable softie he always acts like, and he kind of likes this version of him.

Eventually Sly has to push him back, panting heavily like he’s just run all the way here from Tae’s house and Mizuki just waits for him, breath almost matching his.

“We could totally fuck on the couch,” Sly gets out between gasps that are kind of embarrassing, to be honest.

“We could also just not fuck,” Mizuki counters.

Sly looks up at him disdainfully. “I can see everything through those pants, asshole. You gonna jerk it in the bathroom?”

Mizuki shrugs, movement jostling Sly a little. “Aren’t you seventeen?”

“Fuck the system.”

“The system can get you into jail.”

“Well, are you gonna tell anyone?”

Mizuki doesn’t answer him, just looks at him for a moment or two, and for once Sly isn’t thinking about it when he licks his lips.

When Mizuki rucks Sly’s shirt up and tosses it to the floor, he takes that as answer enough.

They don’t fuck on the couch.

After Mizuki makes him put his shirt back on, they go back to Mizuki’s house. It’s pretty close to his shop, and Mizuki is his usual polite self while they’re walking over, keeping a safe distance between him and Sly, shooting him dirty looks whenever Sly bumps into him and grins innocently up at him. Eventually, Mizuki sighs softly, almost sadly, and his hand darts out quickly, grabbing Sly’s, which is still half-in his jacket sleeve. Sly is so taken aback that he almost stops walking for a second, and Mizuki laughs quietly at that.

Sly hits him in the thigh with their hands.

Mizuki fumbles with the keys for a moment, and Sly was totally planning on just pushing him against the door when they got inside, but Mizuki is so goddamn proper that he just sidesteps him, flicking on a light switch and pushing off his jacket, and to make up for it Sly unabashedly stares at him.  He’d mostly meant it to balance out the almost lethal levels of sap, but Mizuki is kind of hot, really. Sly isn’t sure why he needs such a goddamn tight shirt, but he doesn’t mind. Pretty far from that.

Mizuki drifts over to the kitchen, looking back at Sly.

“You need anything?” he asks.

Sly raises his eyebrows, and Mizuki looks up at the ceiling.

“Do you think about anything besides sex?”

“Uh, not really.” Sly shrugs. “Rhyme.”

“Oh, right. You’re a filthy Rhymer.”

“You were gonna fuck me against a wall twenty minutes ago,” Sly reminds him.

“I’m not that rude,” Mizuki protests, and Sly crosses the room to him.

“I really wouldn’t have minded,” he assures him.

Mizuki just smiles at him, kind of weirdly affectionate, like they’ve been going out for months and they’re not discussing the manners involved in wall sex. It’s sort of uncomfortable, actually, and Sly shifts his weight onto his other foot, looking away from his gaze.

“I was promised sex,” he points out, and Mizuki nods.

“Right. About that,” he says, and leads the way to the bedroom.

Sly doesn’t protest the intensely vanilla bullshit that Mizuki is furthering, and manages to wait till they get onto the bed to pin him down and get as many of Mizuki’s clothes off as he can before he is flipped onto his back, and again loses most of his control.

It’s a quieter affair than he thought it would be. Mizuki isn’t very loud, and Sly finds that he doesn’t feel like he has to perform for him, and once the clothes are off and the decisions have been made and everyone knows what they’re doing, it’s mostly silent. Sly keeps his eyes open as often as he can, nodding whenever Mizuki asks if he’s okay (which is often, but it’s the first time anyone’s ever asked him, and he kind of likes it), and when Mizuki finally does get around to fucking him, it’s slow and calm and easier than he expected and it just feels right, for lack of a better word.

He traces designs on Mizuki’s shoulder, and wraps his legs around the small of his back, and they’re touching everywhere but he wants more.

He doesn’t know if he’s ever going to understand himself, but Mizuki seems to want to, and he’s a fast learner. From the spot that makes Sly lock up around him and clench his teeth to the exact amount of time Mizuki can get away with smiling against his lips, Mizuki is starting to learn him, and Sly thinks that should bother him more than it does, because it’s been maybe five hours, and Sly is such horrible material for anything personal, and this isn’t even his body, and there are so many reasons that Sly should tell him to stop, but he doesn’t.

He never does, and it’s because he doesn’t want to, not because he feels like he should let him or he’s too far in or he can’t or he thinks that it’ll piss Ren and Aoba off, but because he just really likes Mizuki, damnit. And maybe he’s too busy to be worrying about this, so he pulls Mizuki closer and for once he isn’t worrying about not wasting a second of his time with his own body.

It’s sappy, fuck him, but it feels like this is the whole reason he took control.

Mizuki is kind enough not to say anything when they finish, just cleans them both up a little and pulls the blankets up over them.

“Are you staying the night?” he asks, maybe belatedly, and Sly doesn’t answer, just turns on his side and moves closer, waiting until Mizuki wraps an arm around his waist to close his eyes.

“It’s still illegal,” Mizuki says when they wake up, voice muffled by Sly’s neck. By now he knows not to touch the hair, which is a godsend.

“But it was fun,” Sly recounts, and Mizuki is silent for a moment.

“That it was,” he finally says.

“Would you do it again?” Sly asks. He would, in a heartbeat, but he doesn’t want to go too far into this if Mizuki doesn’t feel the same.

Hell, who is he kidding. He’s already way too far gone.

“Yes,” Mizuki answers, right away, and so Sly doesn’t hesitate to roll over and kiss him as well as he can with morning breath and messy hair.

They do it again.

After a while, Sly stops crashing at fellow Rhymer’s houses and starts waiting at the Black Needle for Mizuki to close up, and walking home together becomes a daily ritual. Mizuki is still paranoid that someone’s going to see them and know what’s going on, but whenever he voices it Sly drags him into the nearest alley and kisses him until he smiles at him again.

He knows it’s not a fix-all. This isn’t Sly’s body, and he’s still seventeen, and he has so many problems it’s a wonder he gets out of bed in the mornings. One of these days, he’s just going to switch right back into Aoba, and he doesn’t even know if Aoba will remember Mizuki, let alone want to. This is as good as it gets, and no matter how much lazy morning sex they have and no matter how patient and careful Mizuki is and no matter how well everything just clicks into place right now, it won’t always be that way.

They have maybe a year. Sly can feel Aoba pressing in at the edges of his mind. And he’s strong. He knows he can fight Aoba off.

But he can’t do it forever.

 

By fall, Sly has moved what little possessions he has into Mizuki’s small apartment. Mizuki still looks down on Rhyme and Sly still reads too far into Mizuki’s innocent statements and they still fumble around in the darkness because they can’t see well enough to get Sly prepped, but for the most part it’s pretty much perfect. It’s the kind of happiness where Sly gets drunk off Mizuki’s presence and he trips over nothing when Mizuki smiles and it feels like it’s almost too much, but he’s sort of swimming in this contentment, and time passes so quickly that it makes him wonder if maybe something’s wrong with the world.

They’ve learned how to work around each other. It’s moving so, so quickly, but since the first day, Sly has learned how Mizuki looks when he’s falling asleep and the way his eyelashes flutter when he wakes up and that he takes weirdly cold showers and he loves sketching but he can’t paint for shit. He can’t think of anything that he’d need this knowledge for, but it’s kind of comforting just to have it.

He’s never thought of himself as possessive, but he likes to know Mizuki is his, and no matter how hard any of his clients hit on him, Mizuki comes home to Sly, and Sly knows him in ways that no one else does, and they fit together in so many different ways.

He didn’t think this kind of happiness was possible.

He realizes now that it is, just not for long.

Sly is afraid of time.

He has had so, so little. He’s had maybe four years in his own body, and he knows it can’t last long, and he knows that it’s going to end and he always has, but now the end is coming faster and faster like a bullet train and he is so afraid that he won’t get to say goodbye, that he’ll regret choosing Mizuki, that he’s wasted his time with one person instead of being able to do everything he could with his time.

Because he doesn’t get the chance to do this again. Aoba won’t let him take over again, and he’s going to be back in the dark and he feels like he can never go back to that after Mizuki’s blinding sunlight. Mizuki fucked him up, and he doesn’t have anything to look forward to now. He’s got to enjoy this while he can, but worrying about that is impacting his ability to enjoy it in the first place.

He tells Mizuki this one night, when he’s drunk from some of the liquor Mizuki had in his cabinet from a party a long time ago, even if he knows he won’t understand it all.

For a moment Mizuki blinks at him, then looks at the floor.

“Do you regret it?” Mizuki asks, eyes cast down.

“Not yet,” Sly says.

That’s the best he can offer.

Mizuki gets sick one weekend. It’s winter, and Sly has stopped going out for Rhyme matches so often, citing the cold but really just liking how weirdly affectionate Mizuki is when he’s sleepy and cold. He’s there when Mizuki sneezes first, and fuck him if it’s not adorable but he warned him about this.

He tells him that this is his fault, and Mizuki just sighs through his nose.

“Shut up and come here,” he orders, peeling back the blankets for Sly, and he obeys without protest.

They’re changing each other. Even Sly can see that. Mizuki has become more sharp-tongued, after realizing that very little he says can hurt Sly, and the latter is less confrontational now. Mizuki is more outright, though. He’s teaching Sly objectivity, how to calculate a situation first so he doesn’t leap in blind and hurt himself.

“Isn’t that how this started?” Sly asks.

Mizuki smiles at him again, the kind that doesn’t really get to his eyes and instead just looks like he’s tired.

“Exactly,” he says.

They both regret it, and they are learning that doesn’t mean it can’t be good now.

It was a bad choice. They fucked up, and there was never any way that they could be happy this way, but maybe they can be happy right now.

Maybe.

In April, Sly turns eighteen. They don’t do anything special, just sit on the couch too close together and eat the cheap ramen Mizuki gets from the store on the corner.

Sly tells him about Aoba, and he expects him to recoil, to think Sly’s unnatural (and he wouldn’t be wrong, would he?), but instead Mizuki sets his bowl down and leans in closer, resting his head on Sly’s (Aoba’s? he doesn’t know anymore) shoulder.

“It’s still you,” he says.

“Huh?”

“It’s still your body. You were born into it, and it’s technically you. Right? So you can keep control.”

After five months, Sly has Mizuki’s sad smile memorized, and it’s his turn this time.

“I wish.”

Mizuki’s treatment of him doesn’t change after that. Just because it’s not Sly’s body doesn’t mean that Mizuki stops looking at him like he wants to kiss his forehead and fuck him into the mattress at the same time, and he doesn’t stop doing both of those. He keeps touching Sly in the possessive way of his, like his hands belong on Sly all the time and it’s not even strange. He still talks about some kind of future of theirs, even if it’s nothing serious, just jokes about them being old men and having kids and being generally domestic.

He still laughs when Sly makes stupid jokes, and he still sighs when he recounts Rhyme escapades, and they still stay up till two AM talking about nothing.

Just because it won’t last doesn’t mean that Mizuki will let it fade now, and Sly never considered that.

He doesn’t know if an alternate personality designed to take what he wants is capable of love, but this is as close as he will get.

Mizuki is everything he ever wanted. This is the best he could hope for.

But he is Desire, and he is still not satisfied.

Mizuki isn’t trying to act like Sly is dying, but it happens anyway.

One day, they’re walking home and Sly sees a kitten in the street. It’s kind of rare to see non-Allmate animals in Midorijima now, but he’s fascinated by it, and he darts over to it so quickly he almost tears Mizuki’s arm out of his socket.

“It’s a kitten,” Sly whispers.

“Really,” Mizuki says dryly.

Sly rolls his eyes. “It’s a fucking baby cat. Look at that cute shit.”

“We don’t have anywhere to keep a kitten.”

“But it’s adorable.”

Mizuki laughs quietly. “What happened to Desire, Sly Blue, master Rhyme player?” he asks.

It’s sudden and fast and violent for such a simple question, and it knocks the wind out of him, almost.

He doesn’t know.

They don’t keep the kitten. Mizuki doesn’t say it outright, but Sly understands it’s for more than not having a home for it.

Even if they did, Sly wouldn’t be here to take care of it.

They can only skate around the issue for so long, but they’ll be damned if they don’t make it to the end, steeped in denial.

He remembers the date when shit hit the fan pretty clearly.

July 13th. A Saturday. They’d done nothing that day, Sly too lazy to even go out to check the Rhyme fields, instead lying in bed with Mizuki all day. They hadn’t even fucked. They just curled up together and told stories, Sly about weird shit he’d talked to Ren and Aoba about, and Mizuki’s centered around Dry Juice’s general idiocy. Most of them had been long inside jokes, things that hadn’t even made sense to the other, and it was more listening to the other talk and letting things out than anything else.

“How long did it take to get your own body?” Mizuki asks, loosely braiding Sly’s hair. It looks stupid, and it’s a little uncomfortable, but in a strange way it feels nice.

“Years,” he says simply. “Ren’s an impressive fucker. I spent most of my time on it. They let me drift around, mostly, before the first time I tried. Then I just got kinda…” He waves a hand between their bodies. “Locked away, I guess. Not much to do there.”

“Inside your own mind?”

“I guess. I never know if it’s Aoba’s mind, or it’s technically mine as well. I don’t understand any of it, actually.”

Mizuki slips a hand over his shoulder blade like he’s so fond of doing.

“It was bad planning the first time. He was asleep, and I thought I could do it, but I forgot about Restraint.” He can remember his face just as clearly as when it happened. “Ren, I mean. Sorry. Anyway, he apologized. He said he was doing his job. But neither of them wanted me in control.”

“Why not?”

Sly gestures vaguely. “This. They were so goddamn terrified I wouldn’t be a perfect nun forever, and they didn’t want me to soil us.”

“Is that what you did?”

“I don’t- wait.” Mizuki’s voice is sad and soft again, and Sly starts answering without thinking.

“No. I don’t think so. They would.”

“But you’re Desire. You never know.”

Sly actually flinches at that.

_You never know._

“I know.”

Mizuki seems to realize what he said, and Sly stares blankly at his face, not really seeing anything. “Hey, I’m sorry.” He rubs his hand in soothing circles on Sly’s back. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

He understands exactly how he meant it. It’s just not any better.

“I know,” he says again, and he does.

They pretend it didn’t happen.

“I can feel him sometimes,” Sly says while Mizuki is closing up. He’s following him around like he normally does, chattering about inconsequential shit. Mizuki has learned by now that most of the things Sly says at times like these are just babble, and it’s not fair to drop a bomb like this on Mizuki right now, but he doesn’t care.

“I can feel him like a really heavy rug or something. Like, he’s pressing down, and he wants me down again, and I’m doing okay right now. I can fight him off.”

He follows Mizuki around a corner.

“But I’m getting tired. I’m happy like this, I just need a break, and I don’t get one. If I leave, I never come back. Ever.”

He pauses while Mizuki rearranges the supply closet, watching him from maybe a meter away. More distance than there usually is between them. It’s strange.

“So, goodbye in advance.”

He’ll have to get used to it.

It’s becoming August faster every day, approaching the five-year mark rapidly, and he doesn’t think Aoba would be so exact, but he did think he’d be early. Five years was an estimate, a best case scenario, and he’s getting closer to it every day.

He got more time than he thought he would. It’s still not enough.

He should really be over that.

They make a pillow fort in the first week of August. It’s hot as hell, and Sly’s tied his hair back into a bun to keep it from getting every fucking where. Mizuki keeps smiling at him, messing with his hair, and laughing when Sly tells him it takes effort to look this good.

They had planned to just sit and talk, maybe watch a movie, but Sly is desperate and lonely, and before Mizuki can start anything he climbs into his lap and kisses him like it’s breathing and it sort of is, and he steals Mizuki’s breath and gives it back to him in short puffs and tries to memorize the quiet groans Mizuki makes when Sly rocks down just enough to make him feel it but not enough to help.

They don’t make it to the bed. They don’t even make it to fourth base. They grind on the floor like teenagers (and they kind of are- Mizuki is twenty-one, close enough) and Sly holds him down, as much as he can. Mizuki is physically stronger than he is. He could flip him over in a heartbeat if he wanted to.

But he doesn’t, and they end up holding tight to each other when they finish, just as quiet as the first time and just as nervous.

He doesn’t think their last kiss is the last one. He doesn’t realize that dry-humping on the living room floor is the last time they do anything like that. He doesn’t fully appreciate the last time Mizuki smiles at him like he can’t take his eyes off of Sly.

He doesn’t expect it when it does happen, and Mizuki isn’t there. He’s out getting food, because they were going to attempt to actually try the movie thing again and Mizuki was always one for fitting food into every occassion they could.

Mizuki is gone, and he is alone, and he is used to this. He can be home alone. He’s fine.

Then his vision flickers.

He doesn’t know what’s happening when it is. It’s just same as usual, then cold, then dark.

He sees Aoba’s face for the first time.

“I’m sorry,” Aoba says, but he looks more relieved than sorry.

“You aren’t,” Sly says, and he is too tired to take any pleasure in the shock on Aoba’s face.

He isn’t who he was before. He’s not Sly Blue, and he’s not Desire.

He doesn’t even know if he was ever human, but he sure as hell isn’t who he thought he was.

Aoba doesn’t visit.

He’s still alone.

He learns to sleep most of the time. His life is as good as over at this point, and he’s got nothing left to do. Aoba drags him out sometimes, tries to talk to him, but the bars Ren put over his prison are pretty heavy-duty, and by now he just wants to stay there.

Aoba won’t stop saying he’s sorry.

He wakes up five years later, almost exactly. Not like he’s been counting.

Aoba doesn’t really pull him out. More like Aoba’s mind is going haywire, full of electricity and terror, the likes of which Desire hasn’t seen since he tried to take control. Desire is dazed and confused, unable to divine what the fuck is going on for several minutes, but when the colors and patterns of a Rhyme field become clear, he wakes up pretty damn fast.

It’s a Drive-By, apparently, from what little he can garner from Aoba’s memories. Aoba seems caught between amusement at their opponent’s clothing (a fucking rabbit head. Kids these days) and just freaking out generally because as far as he knows, he’s never played Rhyme. Desire guesses he’s right. _He_ never has.

Aoba’s pretty fucking lucky he’s here, because otherwise the worst he’d be able to do is flail a little and yell at Ren. Desire knows what he’s doing. He always has. If he’s lucky, maybe they’ll both realize that today.

Unlike Aoba, he registers little of their opponent. All that really matters are his stats, after all. Desire works it over in his head quickly, falling easily into his old pattern of control and the bright techno chaos of Rhyme. Back into the old ruts.

He knows what to do.

It thrums through his whole body like it used to, the sheer power of controlling everything that happens and warping his enemy’s moves. If he really wanted to, he could just make Rabbit Boy do whatever he wanted, but that’s not nearly as fun. Desire likes knowing that he didn’t have to use it. He’s good enough at this to twist the other player’s moves without mind control, just strategy.

He is so much better than he used to be.

He lets Rabbit have a little pride, lets him believe for a minute or two that he’s got this under control. If he didn’t have this power, it wouldn’t work so well- most experienced Rhymers can see through what he’s doing in a second. This is a nice way to figure out how good they are, though. If they pull back and build up their defenses, they’re decent enough. The idiots just keep firing away.

Rabbit does try. He pulls away when he sees their shields rising, tries to repair his own team for whatever Desire is planning, but it’s not enough. Desire fucking trashes him, beats his dumbass rabbit Allmates into the ground (or whatever the equivalent of it is in a Rhyme field), watches his reactions as he tries futilely to offer some kind of resistance.

He said he wanted to fight Sly Blue. He had this coming.

Once Aoba’s securely locked Desire back away, and he’s busy babbling to Ren about how awful that was and just general shit no one cares about, Desire recounts the game. That’s not his normal style, at all. Sly Blue is fond of massive damage thrown everywhere, kamikaze attacks designed to carry into real life, anything heavy-hitting. He doesn’t demure and flirt with the enemy like he just did. He doesn’t even give them a _chance_ , let alone waste time testing them.

This isn’t him.

Either he’s losing it, or Mizuki changed him more than he thought he did. And after five years alone and asleep, he doesn’t want to think it’s the second one.

He feels truly sorry for the first time in his life. He learned his lesson too late.

After the Rhyme battle, he stops sleeping. For once, Aoba’s life is vaguely interesting, full of gang fights and gas masks and all sorts of fun shit. Aoba, of course, hates it, because for some reason he seems to think that it was a fucking party everyday to work a minimum-wage job that was more or less glorified phone sex.

(Phone sex using Desire’s power. He actually sort of approves of that choice.)

Ren hates it, too. He hates everything he can’t control, seeing as he never had to opportunity to get used to it. He calls out Aoba’s stats whenever he can, nags him to stop, and becomes sort of a pain after a while. And not just to Desire. Even Saint Aoba starts thinking Ren’s a little bitch (pun sort of intended), and for once Ren knows what it’s like to want to help but be pushed aside because that’s not what Aoba wants to do right now.

It’s pretty sweet.

Desire finds out that the boy he so helpfully crushed is a bitchy hipster with a strange name, that Koujaku is probably going to snap if he doesn’t bang Aoba soon, the gas-masked weirdo is kind of adorable in a kicked-puppy way, the tallass gang leader is the epitome of Stranger Danger, Virus and Trip are almost as creepy as when he knew them, and Ren is still an uptight asshole.

They’re all kind of annoying, actually. Some of them aren’t as bad as the others, but they still piss him off. He’s too tired to care and not tired enough to go back to sleep.

It’s over for him, and he wishes he could die already, just get this shit over with. Stop wallowing in self-pity and regret and rage. Have something to do, maybe. He doesn’t care what it is as long as it’s not this again.

****

He sees Mizuki sometimes.

Aoba will pass by him, chat to him a little, and not know anything about what happened when Aoba was in the dark. He thinks of Mizuki as a casual friend, someone he’s only close to because Koujaku is, and Desire can see it killing him. When Mizuki pesters him about joining Dry Juice, Aoba thinks it’s a half-joking wish to have someone unmarked on their side, and Desire is watching as Mizuki tries to get him back hopelessly, because he still believes that maybe Desire can overthrow Aoba one more time, and it’s more than nice that Mizuki cares about him more than he does Aoba, but this is false hope. This is only going to hurt Mizuki, and he’s rapidly starting to think it would have been better if they had never met.

This never would have worked, and he knew it would hurt, but this still seems like more than he bargained for.

Even if they’re usually only there when Aoba is distracted, thinking too hard to notice, Desire can see Mizuki’s faint smiles again. Mizuki puts on a good show for Aoba, trying to be the happiest little gang leader he can be, not let anything show about how he used to kiss him in the same spot where Aoba’s forehead wrinkles when he’s confused, and Desire is impressed. He knows Mizuki is good at hiding his feelings, but he didn’t think he’d be able to stand against this kind of torture. He is stronger than Desire thought, apparently.

Aoba is so oblivious, and Mizuki is so hopeful. This is a recipe for disaster.

****

He manages to get a message to Mizuki once. He pushes Aoba aside briefly, wasting all his strength on it, and he knows that this time there is even less time but he doesn’t care, just wants to tell Mizuki everything he never got to and touch him one last time and make him know he’s real, even now.

It’s almost impossible. He shouldn’t be able to take over again, but he’s never really done anything how it should work. Their situation is so damn weird.

He closes his eyes as soon as he’s in control, making sure he’s not dazed like he was the first time, and then when he opens them again Mizuki is right in front of him, the same concerned expression he takes on whenever Aoba does something strange, and Sly knows that the only difference between Aoba and him is the eyes. Aoba’s are the gentle gold that Ren wants to protect so badly, and Sly’s are more yellow, wolfish.

It’s a difference so subtle he wouldn’t be surprised if Mizuki didn’t notice, but he does. The second Sly’s eyes flicker open, Mizuki’s mouth falls open, and Sly wastes no time in grabbing his neck and pulling him down and kissing him again because why not?

They’re not going to get another chance, but Sly doesn’t care for some reason. He’s just so fucking happy that he doesn’t have to pretend it’s five years ago, because this is happening right now and everything is kind of perfect.

This time, Mizuki is the one that opens their mouths, and Sly is the one who pushes him into the wall and wedges a leg in between his and holds tight to him like he will never let go.

If he could, he wouldn’t.

When Sly starts biting at his lips and pushing his hands under Mizuki’s shirt again, he is gently moved away.

“How?” Mizuki asks.

“I don’t actually know,” Sly says. “But it worked.”

He pauses, then says, “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“I left.”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“But I’m still sorry.”

“It’s just good that you’re back.”

He doesn’t know how to answer that, so he keeps his hands on Mizuki’s skin and rests his head in the crook of his neck and breathes him in for as long as he can.

Aoba wakes up that way, and it just hurts more when Sly has to watch Mizuki smile and say Aoba fainted.

****

It’s like he’s cockblocking himself.

The weird part of that, though, is that he doesn’t just want sex anymore. He’s supposed to be Desire, and he doesn’t know how to make emotional connections beyond a quick fuck, and it’s fucking terrifying that he wants more than that with Mizuki. It’s terrifying that he doesn’t want control just for the power, and there’s someone waiting for him on the other side, someone that didn’t mean to but still put so many expectations on him.

It’s a strange kind of pressure. He doesn’t like it, not really, but he’ll put up with it for Mizuki. He doesn’t want to want to. He likes being Sly Blue, independent and wild and free, above all, and he doesn’t know how Mizuki managed to calm him and change everything down to the way he plays Rhyme.

He wants to shy away and run back to the safety of being alone. He wants to break Mizuki so that he doesn’t have to see him smile sadly at Aoba anymore, because they’re both too far into each other and is this love or infatuation? Is it either?

Sly still doesn’t know.

****

In a twisted way, he does get his wish.

He decides that he’s going to kill everyone in Morphine, and whoever was even vaguely involved in this.

His old wrath is coming back, and this time it did touch Mizuki. And this time, it didn’t brush him, it snapped him in half.

****

He can’t get Mizuki’s screams out of his head. It’s the last time he’s ever going to hear him, after all.

He can’t believe he’s gone.

****

Aoba doesn’t say sorry. He doesn’t remember Desire exists now. He doesn’t remember that Ren is Restraint, and the voice that used to want to know him is now the one that screams destroy, destroy and that the part of himself that broke Mizuki isn’t Scrap, it’s Desire. And he doesn’t know that when he was cracking open his friend’s sanity and watching the blood drip down the walls, it wasn’t some unnamed force inside of him. It was still Desire, and he made him do the last thing he wanted to.

Sometimes, Aoba sees him. Sometimes when he calls Desire out, he can see him. They look similar enough, and so Aoba takes to referring to him as “the other me,” which Desire thinks is just a little rude. He only comes out when Aoba uses Scrap now, and tries to sleep as much as he can otherwise. Before, he kept watch in case he could take over, but he doesn’t want that as much now. He mostly wants to die, and take as many with him as he can.

Mizuki changed him, and now that he’s gone, it’s like he reverts to his default settings. If he’s changed from the beginning, it was mostly in vain, because he’s just the same as he was now.

There is some comfort in being insensitive and inhuman.

****

He doesn’t remember who Aoba runs off to Platinum Jail with. Not Koujaku, which was a bit of a surprise. He always expected they’d end up together. Overbearing, oblivious, not-as-straight-as-they-seem men flock together.

It’s no one extraordinary, certainly. There are lots of long talks about life and feelings and everything in between, and that’s really all Desire garners. He’s never called out, and he waits for it, drifting like a ghost in the back of Aoba’s mind.

He knows it’s going to happen. Aoba always needs him. He doesn’t want to, but he can’t fully cut him out.

Aoba isn’t perfect, and it means that Desire has to acknowledge that there’s no good in him, but he likes knowing that it hurts Aoba.

He has sunken low.

****

When Aoba finally does call him back, desperate to save this new boyfriend of his, Desire almost wants to break them both. Aoba is in a fragile position, having asked Desire for help, and they’re inside their mind. He could easily crush Aoba and take over, and he wants to so badly. He could break the boy Aoba came with, and it wouldn’t even be hard. He’d get another chance to feel the power of Scrap.

He wants to destroy them so hard it almost wrecks him.

Then he sees the boy, lying in a blank room in his own mind. He’s vulnerable, weak, limbs cuffed and chained, and there is something in his face.

He looks so young. He has the same look of peace that Mizuki did when he slept, the same kind of quiet that Desire would have given anything to keep when he was younger. The kind that Sly Blue never could have had.

Desire will never get a second chance. He wants to make sure this boy doesn’t, either. He deserves nothing. He is weak and broken already, and Desire could snap him in a second, and he doesn’t know why he hasn’t already. This boy can’t be twenty yet, and Sly wants to take all his future away like Aoba did to him.

He reaches a hand out, a hand that will destroy everything this boy has, whether he wants to live or not, and Desire feels the fire of Scrap crackling around him. He wanted to go out like he used to in Rhyme games, kamikaze, all or nothing.

But he doesn’t.

He wrecked every part of himself already, and the best he can do now is keep something untouched by his innate skill for fucking things up and hurting everyone.

Just once.

****

The boy is named Noiz, and he asks Desire so many questions he doesn’t know how to answer.

Desire checks with him first, makes sure Noiz is at least halfway sane, and he almost feels sorry with the speed that Noiz responds that he wants this to end. He answers like there’s no other way he could.

Then he asks Desire.

_Can I not wake up?_

_Can I stop trying?_

And Desire isn’t going to lie. He did the exact same things. He slept for years because he couldn’t face the facts, and after the last time he took control he’s made barely any effort to do it again. What Noiz wants to do is exactly what Desire has done, and there’s really no way he can tell him anything but yes, go ahead.

_Then, can I stop trying now?_

_No_ , he says, and Noiz asks again. _I can’t stop?_

_No._

_No matter what?_

_Yes._

_Never?_

_Yes._

_Why?_

and he doesn’t know

There’s the obvious answer, you can’t, but he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know why Noiz can’t give up, doesn’t know why Desire can’t give up, except that he’s driven by a thirst for power. Noiz is motivated by no such thing. Noiz has gotten to the point Desire never did, a deepest desire to just not be anymore, and if Desire had felt that maybe it would have been easier for him. Maybe he could have let himself slip away. But even in the moments when he wanted to die the most, there was a deep fear of what happens after, and Desire didn’t want that. He’s wasted so much of his life already, and if there really is nothing but void at the end, he thinks the best he can do is wait here, because anything is better than the end.

Noiz wants nothing, quite literally. Noiz wants to sink into nonexistence until there’s nothing left of him, and Desire thinks that maybe that is the only thing worse than death, wanting death. That’s good as. No one can make you live if you don’t want to, and Aoba has managed to hold onto Noiz and keep him from drifting away into nothingness, but if he lets go Noiz will embrace it with open arms.

He doesn’t know how to tell him that this is better. He doesn’t know how to get across that what Noiz needs is just a break, and death is not a break. Death is an end-all, and because Noiz is too tired now does not mean that he needs to let go forever.

Desire wanted life, and got only darkness. Noiz wants the same darkness, but he has so much life. He’s young and burning with everything he could do, and Desire wants to make him know that.

 _Because you can't_ , Desire says. That is reason enough. He doesn’t have to answer to this punk.

 _Why not?_ Noiz persists, and Desire sighs to himself. He might as well keep going. He can’t leave his mind right now without giving him answers, and if Noiz isn’t willing to find them himself, he can give him just enough to make him want to find more.

Because it’s not over yet, Desire says, and he can’t control the bitterness in his voice. Noiz has everything laid out for him in a way Desire could never hope for, and fuck him if he isn’t going to make him use it.

Noiz is still silent, eyes still closed, and Desire waits for him. Noiz doesn’t realize how perfect an opportunity this would be for Desire to Scrap him. Noiz is leaving himself open, and for someone who seemed so guarded when Desire was watching through Aoba’s eyes, he is young and weak now. He’s good as dead if Desire wants to hurt him.

And he does. Aoba broke Mizuki, and Desire should do the same to Noiz. But he doesn’t, if only because he wants to go with one less person’s blood on his hands.

He crouches next to Noiz’s sleeping body.

 _What about him?_ Noiz asks quietly.

Desire knew this was coming. Everything circles back to Aoba in the end. Hell, even Desire has made a disproportionate amount of things about him. Aoba does end up being pretty fucking important in everyone’s lives without trying. Desire had hated that. No matter how much effort he put in, he never could be as integral as Aoba is. He is so much less important than he always thought he was.

And even so. This is about Noiz, not Aoba. Just this once, Aoba is taking a backseat, and Desire isn’t even worrying about him, because he can’t tell Noiz not to if he is.

_You don’t decide that._

_Then who does?_ Noiz asks, soft and lethal like he thinks this is a genius counterargument.

He can’t blame the kid. He’s half-unconscious. He’s allowed to be kind of cocky.

 _Think about it,_ Desire urges him. He’s not going to spoon feed Noiz everything.

Noiz falls quiet, eyelids twitching.

_Who are you?_

And in the end, it’s a nineteen-year-old boy who does it.

He doesn’t know. Not Aoba, he’s always thought. Independent. Desire. Sly Blue. Rhymer. Mizuki’s. The ghost. The one in the dark.

He knows what he is, but not who he is.

_Who are you?_

_That’s_

that’s what he doesn’t know

****

He is nothing.

He hears Noiz’s voice saying it over and over and he hears Aoba and Noiz and he is sure they are discussing something wonderful and kind and about feelings or sex or whatever the hell, and he never considered that. He never wondered who he was. He knew who Aoba was, and he knew Ren, and he thinks he knows Noiz painfully well now, but he doesn’t know himself.

He didn’t really need to.

He thinks of himself in terms of others. He’s Aoba’s desires. He’s Ren’s opposite. He’s something to Mizuki, the details of which they never had time to figure out, and he doesn’t know which (if any) is the best measure of who he is.

He isn’t anything by himself, never has been, and he thinks maybe none of them were ever meant to be separate people. Aoba is no more a person than he is, and Ren certainly isn’t. They’re all one-third of the same whole. They were meant to be together.

And it’s ironic, really, that Aoba and Ren spent so long trying to cut him out when they needed him so badly.

And it’s almost funny that as soon as he wanted to keep Mizuki safe, he broke him.

But they got what they wanted, didn’t they?

All three of them did.

Just a little too late.

******  
**

**Author's Note:**

> whoo i wrote this in a day god bless america  
> anyway yeah this is 70% speculation and 30% bullshit i think i got everything in  
> it is named after an ariana grande song and im sorry  
> kudos to admiral for helping with the idea  
> yo my tumblr is noizcancellation hmu ;) or just come talk about sly and mizuki because holy wow we need more sly and mizuki


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